The state (lack thereof) of public transportation around here

We're not a well-to-do community by any means. Not everyone (gasp!) can afford a car. The trouble is, around here, there's little to no access to any alternate means of transportation.

When I first moved here almost 10 years ago, I was shocked to learn that there's absolutely no taxi service. I'd moved from Long Island where there seems to be hundreds of cabbies going anywhere you needed them to go. I asked why no cabs would come to our town and I got two answers. One was because there are some areas with high drug usage (yeah? I bet there's lots of places like that in New York too! What, New York cabbies are braver or something?) and the other was because this is a poor area. Ahem. Not a lot of money to be made here. It seems unreasonable and outrageous to me. My son and I have both been approached by people we barely know, asking for a ride here there or home because there was no other way to get there. We both gave rides to those elderly or frail women but come on! They deserve better than to have to beg rides!

Having a cab available sure would have been helpful for us today. TB was having his tooth pulled at 8 and Kristin needed to be in her class 40 minutes away by 9. That was okay but ... how would TB get home? The class would go until 11:30. Bill was available to bring TB home if it could be done by 9:45. Then Bill would have to go to work. Heidi was already at work. Luckily, TB's tooth pulled without complications and so Bill was able to bring him home. If it had gone the other way, TB would have had a long uncomfortable wait. Either that, or I would have had to go in and pull Kristin from her class. Meanwhile, if we had taxi service, then all TB need do is call a cab if his appointment ran late. Good thing it didn't!

And the buses! They run once every two hours if you're lucky and then you have to have transportation to the bus stop. If we had no car, first we'd have to walk a mile for the little bus that runs around town and take it to the grocery store where Kristin works, hoping the arrival time will more or less coincide with the big bus that runs up the main drag. The schedule usually doesn't match and so you end up having to wait somewhere for a couple of hours coming or going.

To save gas and wear and tear on her old car, Heidi drives to the bus stop and then catches the big bus to the grocery store where she works. If she works from 8 to 3, she has to catch the 7 a.m. bus (which is fine) but then there's no bus in the afternoon until almost 5.

Kristin is one of the few kids around who has no car (can't afford one and we can't afford to get one for her) and can't drive (can't afford the insurance and neither can we) so I take her to her ASL class at the campus located 20 or 25 miles from home. With the cost of gas, there's no way I'd drop her off and go home like I do when she has classes at the local campus.

I called the bus company which was a total waste of time. I called the township and wasted more of my time. That kind of response is just one of the reasons I am so mad and fed up.

Tuesday Sundries

What a wasted day! Want to have a wasted day? Spend a morning in a family court in New Jersey trying to get the right thing done for a little boy! We waited and waited and waited and when we finally got in before the judge, Linda the Teflon Girl whines to the judge can we continue this so I can get an attorney?

And the judge does. Why didn't Linda get an attorney beforehand?

Not only that, when the lawyer tried to get temporary residential custody for Kennan the dad based on Linda's temporary residence with Grandma, all of a sudden there's no end date in sight and so Linda's not about to become homeless. And so there's no change in custody.

It was a total waste of time.

The new hearing is in six weeks. By then Linda will have scurried around and plotted to answer all the points we made in our statement so that by the time we go before the judge again in July we're going to look like idiots. There's a book about people like Linda--how they make people who try to do the right thing look like they're bitter, vindictive and wrong. Yep...that's how we'll look in six weeks.

And Ted's mother said some of the worst, hurtful things I've ever heard.

Teflon Girl wins again. Yes, I'm bitter ... now.



10 Favorite Time Wasters

1. Going to Family Court in New Jersey.

No, just kidding

1. Surfing the web randomly
2. Playing Chuzzles, a computer game
3. Playing Tumblebugs, see above
4. Farm Frenzy, see above
5. Polar Bear bowling, see above
6. Watch reruns of CSI
7. Label pictures
8. make lists in advance of Thursday 13
9. Stare into space and daydream
10. Straighten up my desk, a losing battle and total waste of time!



This week's theme/prompt is:
TAILS - Tell about your job (Or one you've had)

There was one interesting thing at court today: an interpreter for the deaf--and it turns out I know the guy! I used to be an interpreter myself for over 20 years and would like to say I loved every minute of it but I didn't. What I did enjoy:

meeting new people all the time
varying assignments so there wasn't much boredom
the language itself--it's so beautiful

What I did not enjoy:

physical and mental fatigue
pain in my wrists
panic attacks--yes, I used to get them right in the middle of interpreting and I always felt like I was going to die. It was probably the worst part of the job--not that all interpreters get them but I did and it was hell.

Sometimes I miss interpreting but the field's changed so much it's just as well I got out and stopped. It was going in a direction I didn't care to follow anymore. As one terp said to me years back: "It's just not fun anymore."

Music Memoirs

Another word association week. Remember name the first song/artist/album etc that you think of when you see these 10 words.

Country: Billy Ray Cyrus
Patriotic: Proud To Be An American
Summer: Beach Boys
Heat: Canned
Fun: Fun Fun Fun
Beach: Under the Boardwalk
Surf: Surfin USA
Park: MacArthur Park
Live: Eric Clapton Unplugged
South: The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down

Tina's Tuesdays

Topic: Fill In The Blanks...

1. If I could go on a dream vacation, it would be to Hawaii.
2. My 3 favourite things to do are: reading, writing and swimming.
3. If I could change the world, I would start with the environment we've practically destroyed.

You Know You're From NJ Explanation and Challenge

I was so happy to see the positive response to my post "You Know You're From New Jersey when..." The post was in answer to a meme called Hump Day Humor. Mercedesrules and Mrs. Brownstone @ xboxwife were hoping that I could post an explanation of some of these things.

I thought it would be fun to also make it a challenge. If you want to participate, please leave me a comment. Just google "You Know You're From ...(fill in your state, country etc)" and hopefully you'll find a list similar to mine. Post it and if there are items on the list that would be confusing or totally unknown to someone from elsewhere, just put down a little explanation. We'll all learn something!

For mine, most people wonder about the jug handle. It's the uniquely New Jersey way of making a left turn. In most states, there are left turn only lanes and lights. New Jersey has a few of those but they mostly have jug handles. Think of its shape. The turn starts on the right, loops around a little like a handle would and ends at a light. At the light, you can cross the road and go straight or make a legal huey. Sometimes you have to a little past the street you wanted to make a left onto and it can get very confusing if you've never encountered them before. You can see a picture of two different jug handles on Wikipedia.

The Oranges are 4 municipalities in northern NJ with "Orange" in the name

The Two Guys From Harrison had a store chains, sort of like an upscale Walmart

A Piney technically means a third generation or more person living in the Jersey Pinelands--it can have some real negative connotations though, like Piney = redneck

I don't think anyone in NJ really knows how to properly negotiate a circle. The right of way changes from circle to circle and you just have to know where you are.

We've never pumped our own gas because we're just not allowed to. The law says only the attendants pump gas. You would think we'd pay more for this, but NJ seems to have the cheapest gas in the country. Maybe it's because there are so many oil refineries in northern NJ.

Hope that helps! :D